Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/427

416 "It's too bad. Perhaps after this affair is settled we can straighten things out with him and get him started right again. Good heavens, I talk like a prig, saying 'we'! I guess it can be left to Lydia safely enough."

"I don't know." Dunbar shook his head. "Lydia's almost too gentle, too affectionate with him. And he takes the bit in his teeth. If you don't mind my saying so, Floyd,"—he laughed,—"Stewart ought to have somebody like your girl to manage him. Marion would deal with his nonsense. I tell you, Floyd, you're a lucky fellow. If ever there was a girl made to help a man and manage him right and get the best out of him, Marion's the one. The only kick I have to make is that you did n't leave her for somebody who needed her more."

"Don't you think I need to have the nonsense taken out of me?" laughed Floyd.

Dunbar's appreciation of Marion gave him something of a chill. It seemed to emphasize her least attractive qualities as her most characteristic. But it was very soon after this that she returned to Avalon, and that Floyd had an opportunity to discover with shame how unkind and unsympathetic had been his apprehensions. He found her far more lovable than he had been supposing her—even if he did not wholly love her. She was really very sweet and gentle, she took an immediate interest in his problems—an interest which was intelligent and not obnoxious, and which was enlivened with a humorous light. Floyd found her, as he had always hitherto found her, a pleasant, happy companion; yet when he was away from her he was indifferent, sensible mainly of the flaws. He knew that in her calm, serene way she was determined to have his whole love, and the knowledge made him perversely stubborn about yielding it—or rather his earnest volition seemed to be swept backward by a stronger current of antipathy. The desire of his nature was for a woman of a confiding cosiness, not for one of a large and generous spaciousness. He could not rid himself of a